Boston University OpenBU http://open.bu.edu Theses & Dissertations Boston University Theses & Dissertations 2017 In conversation with readers and their Times: Myles na gCopaleen’s “Cruiskeen Lawn” https://hdl.handle.net/2144/24107 Boston University BOSTON UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES Dissertation IN CONVERSATION WITH READERS AND THEIR TIMES: MYLES NA GCOPALEEN’S “CRUISKEEN LAWN” by CATHERINE OFELIA AHEARN B.A., Middlebury College, 2011 Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2017 © Copyright by CATHERINE O. AHEARN 2017 Approved by First Reader ____________________________________________________ Christopher Ricks William M. and Sara B. Warren Professor of the Humanities Second Reader ____________________________________________________ Archie Burnett, D.Phil Professor of English Third Reader ____________________________________________________ Joseph Nugent, Ph.D Associate Professor of the Practice of English, Boston College Acknowledgements All of my thanks and gratitude to Christopher Ricks, Archie Burnett, and Marilyn Gaull for their kindness, generosity, and mentorship. They have made the Editorial Institute community a source of inspiration. Thank you to Professors Joseph Nugent and Thomas O’Grady, members of my defense committee, for their careful readings of my work. Thank you to the staff at the Boston College John J. Burns Library and the Southern Illinois University Special Collections Research Center at the Morris Library, namely Justine Sundaram, Andrew Isidoro, and Aaron M. Lisec. Their assistance navigating through Brian O’Nolan’s papers (and offers to waive a few copy fees) was invaluable to this project. My thanks also to the staff at the National Library of Ireland and the Harvard University Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library for their aid as I availed myself of the newspaper archives there. My sincere appreciation to the Graduate Research Abroad Fellowship Committee and to the Boston University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences for a Long Term Research Abroad Fellowship, which funded four months of my research in Dublin. The International Flann O’Brien Society held its first conference the summer before I began my studies at the Editorial Institute. Since then, through biennial conferences and the founding of a peer-reviewed journal, the Society has formed a kind, enthusiastic community around Flann O’Brien studies. I thank them, especially Ruben Borg and Paul Fagan, for welcoming me into this community and for their promotion of O’Nolan scholarship. iv My deep gratitude and affection to Professor Stephen Donadio for his mentorship and support since my first year at Middlebury College. I applied to the Editorial Institute and chose a project on Brian O’Nolan at his suggestion, two decisions that changed the course of my life. Thank you to Associate Professor of Humanities Meg Tyler and Boston University’s Writer-in-Residence William Loizeaux for their friendship and boundless encouragement. I thank my co-workers at HB Agency for their love, sense of humor, and faith in me. My thanks and affection to those who proofread pages on very little notice (Casey Mahoney, Jenni Matchett, Ashley Quisol, and Margo Seybolt), and to Jason Berkenfeld, Elizabeth Gay, and Anna Zauner for their reliable input on topics big and small. Thank you to the students of the Editorial Institute, with whom I have enjoyed learning and from whom I have learned along the way. Institute PhD students Lauren Eckenroth and Chelsea Bingham have generously given their time (and eyes) to drafts of this dissertation. Their friendship made this journey as much about personal growth and it was about editorial scholarship. I could not have completed this dissertation without the emotional and financial support of my family: Vidalia Ahearn, James J. Ahearn, Kay Ahearn, Daisy Miranda, Shelby Rodriguez, Shirley Perezic, Al Perezic, and Jacob Rubens. They fill my life with love and are my life-long teachers. I would also like to thank my father, James E. Ahearn, who passed away before I completed my project. He had a penchant for storytelling, a Mylesian sense of humor, and treated my studies as a spectator sport. v IN CONVERSATION WITH READERS AND THEIR TIMES: MYLES NA GCOPALEEN’S “CRUISKEEN LAWN” CATHERINE OFELIA AHEARN Boston University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 2017 Major Professor: Christopher Ricks, William M. and Sara B. Warren Professor of the Humanities ABSTRACT For nearly twenty-six years, Brian O’Nolan wrote “Cruiskeen Lawn” in the Irish Times under the pseudonym Myles na gCopaleen. The column has often been regarded as a distraction for O’Nolan—one that kept him from writing more novels or plays. Yet characteristics of his work across genres and stages of his life (such as his use of pseudonyms) began in his experiments within newspapers. As a student at University College, Dublin, he wrote for the student publication Comhthrom Féinn, and later began his own satirical paper, Blather. Our study and understanding of “Cruiskeen Lawn” is fundamental to our understanding of O’Nolan as an author across literary forms, topics, and periods. The translation of “Cruiskeen Lawn” from the expanse of a newspaper page to an edition or to a dissertation is itself a form of editorial emendation. This dissertation, bound with its own set of constraints and rules, cannot fix this. Yet it will aim to consider the gains and losses of how we collect O’Nolan’s column. This dissertation has four chapters. The first relates the story of how O’Nolan came to writing through newspapers, how he came to write in the Irish Times, and how his relationship with the paper changed vi over time. A chronology includes the events in O’Nolan’s own life that pertain to his newspaper writing and work under the pseudonym Myles na gCopaleen. It gives readers a holistic sense of the columns by placing them in the broader context of his life and includes end notes with references to his papers. The catalogue accounts for every “Cruiskeen Lawn” article O’Nolan published and it serves as the first document that consolidates this information. The edition comprises forty “Cruiskeen Lawn” articles. Annotations focus on tracing O’Nolan’s references to other articles and papers in order to open investigative pathways toward those sources and to show how richly the column borrowed from other media. vii Contents Abstract ………………………………………………………………………………… vi Contents ..............……………………………………………………………………… viii List of Tables ………………………………………………………………………….... ix List of Images ………………………………………………………………………….... x Editorial Principles ………………………………………………………………………. 1 Chapter 1: Getting to Myles ……………………………………………………………... 5 Chapter 2: Table of Dates ……………………………………………………………… 66 Chapter 3: Catalogue of “Cruiskeen Lawn” …………………………………………… 81 Chapter 4: Edition …………………………………………………………………….. 335 Bibliography ………………………………………………………………………….. 462 Curriculum Vitae ……………………………………………………………………... 471 viii List of Tables Table 1: Table of Absences …………………………………………………………….. 55 Table 2: “Cruiskeen Lawn” Publication Frequency …………………………………… 83 ix List of Images Image 1: “Cruiskeen Lawn,” 17 March 1947 .................................................................... 5 Image 2: “Cruiskeen Lawn,” 5 May 1947 ....................................................................... 11 Image 3: Blather, 1.1, August 1934 ................................................................................. 15 Image 4: “Cruiskeen Lawn,” 14 December 1942 ............................................................ 26 Image 5: “Cruiskeen Lawn,” 1 March 1943 .................................................................... 41 Image 6: “Cruiskeen Lawn,” 10 September 1941 ........................................................... 46 Image 7: “Cruiskeen Lawn,” 28 January 1958 ................................................................ 53 Image 8: Irish Times, 31 August 1956 ............................................................................. 82 Image 9: “Cruiskeen Lawn,” 24 December 1945 ............................................................ 85 Image 10: “Cruiskeen Lawn,” 16 January 1961 .............................................................. 85 x Editorial Principles Arrangement This dissertation begins with a biographical narrative about Brian O’Nolan. It focuses on his early newspaper writing as Brother Barnabas at University College Dublin, beginnings at the Irish Times, and his relationship with the paper until his death in 1966. Chapter 2 is an annotated chronology of O’Nolan’s life with endnotes that add details gathered from his papers housed at the Burns Library at Boston College and the Morris Library at the University of Illinois, Carbondale. There follows a catalogue of every “Cruiskeen Lawn” article that ran in the paper from 4 October 1940 to O’Nolan’s death on 1 April 1966. The final chapter is a selection of “Cruiskeen Lawn” articles from the 4,212 O’Nolan published within the Irish Times, transcribed and annotated. The chapters inform one another and build context for better understanding “Cruiskeen Lawn” in the edition closing this dissertation. General Principles Adduced O’Nolan rarely wrote under his given name. When he did, he often used its Irish forms: Brian Ua Nualláin, or Breen Ó Nualláin. Work on O’Nolan tends to refer to him as Flann O’Brien, the pseudonym most closely aligned with his novels. The Flann O’Brien Society is named for this pen name as well, but its international celebration